Games

Elder Scrolls Online, as long as you find a good group of friends.

I also nearly have 1000 hours in MGSV Phantom Pain.

Deep Rock Galactic

Would be arma 3, dayz and stalker series. My currently favourite is stalker Anomaly.

The only two games I have that I've put more than 1000 hours in are Factorio and Rimworld. I'd highly recommend both.

Somehow ctrl+f failed to find this one, but Path of Exile is probably my drug of choice there. While I raked in 1k hrs with Dota2, I'm not sure I"d recommend it unless you really want to sell your soul to MOBA life. And it's not quite to 1k yet, but honorable mention must go to Satisfactory as it's well on its way to being game #3 in the 1k+ list with me.

Right now I can't recommend it because streamers and reddit made the game kinda trash, but Path of Exile. On steam I have 3k hours and I played on original launcher 5-10 more times longer.

I hope poe2 will make Poe great again.

Warframe. Inching closer to 3.000h currently.

It does come in waves, but every once in a while I go all in again and lose myself in the infinite things you can do.

Factorio, it's fun from the first minute but you'll still be learning new things after 1000 hours.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord with some mods took long enough to give up for me.

Morrowind. Although it's more like play a few hundred hours every five years for me.

Trackmania 2020. Great example of a game that is simple in concept but super deep in skills that you can both play super casually at your own pace or super competitively. Plus there is a great community and endless content to play.

I'm amazed nobody has mentioned Kerbal Space Program (first one). That and TF2 are my most played

Minecraft. Probably have around 5000+ hours I think. Playing since I was 10(now 17). So, many wasted hours on Anarchy Servers and Ranked Bedwars.

Dayz.

Just hit 3.5k hours and it's still the most exciting game I've ever played. Nothing else gives the same adrenaline kick as a good encounter or a fight in Dayz. Also a great game for meeting new people as talking to others in this game is a must.

Project Zomboid, Rimworl, Dwarf Fortress, Stellaris, Starsector...

Monster Hunter. The first one I played, MH4U back in the 3DS days, I put 1,000 hours into. That was nearly 10 years ago, and I'm still playing the franchise to this day. Currently finally going through the Sunbreak expansion of Monster Hunter Rise on the PC, and noticing a marked improvement in my mental health over playing other games.

Factorio, Warframe, Minecraft, Dota 2. However, the only two I'd still recommend are Factorio and Minecraft. Warframe's grind seems to have finally burned me out for good, Dota 2 is bad. You're not gonna have fun with Dota 2. The game concept is good, but like most competitive online games, the community fucking sucks.

In addition to Factorio and Minecraft, try Voices of the Void, The Long Drive, WEBFISHING, and Balatro.

Edit: oh yeah, and personally I have both Sims 2 and Sims 4 w/ all DLC (yeah, I toootally bought all the dlc) installed on my steam deck. Both fun games with their own ups and downs. Sims 2 is great vanilla, Sims 4 is great when heavily modded. Don't bother downloading the F2P version of Sims 4 from Origin if you're wanting to mod it with stuff like sacrificial's mods. Those'll break with every major update (and sometimes minor updates too!) and you can't pause updates anymore. So, you'll have to find alternative methods.

Elite Dangerous is my go-to lately.

It's different to most other games, by not being goal-oriented except for the goals you set for yourself. No main quest line dictating progress. No mandatory tasks. No win condition. Instead, it drops you into a simulation of our entire galaxy roughly 1300 years in the future, where humanity has mastered hyperspace travel and spread through hundreds of star systems.

(To give an idea of the simulation's scope: Around 85 million systems have been recorded by players so far, and those are a vanishingly small fraction of what's out there. Space is big.)

I like that it offers a variety of activities to fit whatever mood I might be in on a given day. I can hunt pirates, mine asteroids, engage in a bit of piracy myself, find and collect bio samples, infiltrate rival settlements, venture into vast unexplored areas of space, discover Earth-like worlds that nobody has ever encountered before, defend humanity against hostile forces, photograph beautiful stellar phenomena, rescue stranded survivors, customize and finely tune my ship to perform beyond its original specs, team up with friends, pledge to a political power and expand their influence, or chill out as a space trucker and haul cargo to earn enough money for my next upgrade. It can occupy all my attention, or just be relaxing entertainment while I listen to music or an audiobook.

It's an MMO in the sense of having a large game world (galaxy) shared by all players in real time, but PvP is optional. One mode exposes you to other players, while another limits you to NPC encounters. You can switch between them at will.

One warning: A space ship has more than a few controls to learn, and they're better suited to a game controller or HOTAS than a keyboard and mouse. I use button combinations for almost everything beyond basic flight controls, since there aren't enough buttons on a controller for everything.

Team Fortress 2

Not a favourite anymore but still beats my second most played games by a factor of 4... Warframe was fun at the beginning and really clicked at about 200hrs. I left after about 2200hrs because I burned out but it still has a place in my heart.

I don't think I've ever played a game more than 200 or 300 hours.

Dark Age of Camelot

L4D2. built a new computer for that game specifically after loving L4D. super fun arcade shooter that will never be uninstalled from my computer.

No Man's Sky. A foot deep but a mile wide.

For some context I have insomnia. Stellaris isa game I've been able to fall asleep playing. Eventually it auto pauses but that's fine. It's a game I will always play because I find it peaceful and relaxing

There was a moment in my life when I thought that perhaps I was outgrowing games... that they were just not really designed for the entertainment of adult human beings in a way that could satisfy me. Not one of my old stand-bys could, as you said, "scratch the itch" or provide "the same enjoyment that it used to." I found myself spending more time with films and books.

Then I got into FromSoft games and indie titles, and within a year I realized games still held incredible experiences for me. I hadn't outgrown games. I had only outgrown the bland slop represented by most AAA releases, and especially by online multiplayer releases. Personally, I'd recommend giving up on looking for a new 1000+ hour obsession. Instead I'd recommend seeking a broad array of 10-100 hour loves. If you haven't already tried them, for me a love of gaming was saved primarily by: Dark Souls, FTL, Spelunky, and Hollow Knight.

I've been playing Tf2 for over 1.5k hours now. I recommend you to try it out There's a reason why that game from 2007 is still not dead.

If you're a Destiny refugee, the most obvious answer is Warframe, which just keeps on getting better and better.

I think Destiny is the only game I ever put over 2,000 hours into, but Factorio might take the crown soon - 1800 and counting.

Wow, so many posts 😵‍💫 Sooo I think I'll be the one to mention Elder Scrolls Online ^.^ I've got 1800 hours in that and miss it pretty bad v.v Am stuck on a laptop that can't run it (nor much else) playably :-\ Anyway, it's got many things to do. Three faction storylines, lots of side stuff (everything can be played at any level; people will take low-level characters into Trials and not even worry about it), crafting, character build funs deeper and more interesting than they seem, just plain wandering around peekifying all' the Elder Scrolls places... Idunno, it just somehow kept me of all critters hooked for quite a while, which is very odd. I tend to get bored of things realquick 😅

I only have 800 hours in it but I suppose I can second (or, well, nth) Warframe? 😅

Alan Wake 1. It's one of the few games i can play over and over again and not get bored. Sometimes i'll just pop in and play a chapter when i want something to do. I keep it and it's sister game, Alan Wake's American Nightmare on system at all times just so i can play it

X4 Foundations... This sucks people life: you start a game when the sun goes to sleep, one second later the sun wake up 😅